SW Bell cellphones messed up

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

My Southwestern Bell cellphone hasn't been working right since, hmm, about January 1st. I doubt it's the physical telephone, which seems okay.

I tried to call the repair service about this last night, and the greeting message started by saying that if our bills are late, which they might be, we will have extra time to pay them. I got disconnected before I talked to a human being about my problem.

Now here's the really interesting thing: I tried again today to contact them, and their repair line has been busy all day. I've never had that experience before, even once, much less for an entire day. I wonder if it's Y2K related? Nah, couldn't be.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), January 12, 2000

Answers

Not a chance Steve. That Y2K thing was solved err...let's see a 12 days ago....

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), January 12, 2000.

there have been problems with Voicestream in Hawaii that include messages that don't get through for 24 hours or more, phones that don't ring...little things like that :)

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), January 12, 2000.

Someone mentioned that the Voicestream problems were Y2K related, I would bet that these are also.

-- (gregF@itoren.org), January 12, 2000.

A followup: I finally got through to SW Bell. After waiting about 15 minutes on hold, I talked with a person in customer service, who logged my problems. When I asked him why they were having unusually heavy call volume, he said it was because their bills hadn't gone out as usual, and that they had installed a new billing system in November. The installation had not gone very smoothly.

I wonder why they would be beseiged by calls from unsent bills? I usually don't keep track of the date when I'm supposed to get a bill, and I don't recall ever having called the phone company to complain about such a problem.

For what it's worth, when I said "This [service problem] wouldn't be because of Y2K, would it?" he said he thought it might very well be. But he also said that they don't tell him anything, so that may not have any particular relevance.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), January 13, 2000.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ